Surf fight update: “Why I went to the police!

"I did what I had to do to protect myself," says longboarder after lame surf fight.

Yesterday, BeachGrit reported on the world’s lamest surf fight, an incident that led to one surfer being cuffed and arrested and facing possible jail time on assault charges. Various Instagram and Facebook accounts posted video of the incident, a light collision on a two-foot peak at First Jetty in Virginia Beach.

“My father did. I don’t know where he got the perception he taught me to surf,” he said.

Second, he’s had “ongoing problems” with Alex after an incident when he was ten years old. No charges were pressed then. Jordan doesn’t want to talk about that incident in cases it prejudices the case against Alex.

“This happened so fast. I felt his hands on me! He was tackling me out of aggression. Surfing shouldn’t be a scapegoat for violence.”

And the collision?

“It was five-thirty, low light, dusk. He stood up and jumped at me. He put his hands on my shoulders and I grabbed him and rotated him. I was confused, like, dude why are you tackling me on a one-foot wave? He didn’t punch me in the face. You can see in the video he doesn’t push me off the board, but his hands hit me in the bottom of the neck and chin area. I felt it! He laid a hand on me and in the United States you can do that. Surfing is a recreational sport and I’ve been surfing for fourteen years. I’m not a kook. I rode for Hurley for ten years… I’ve done all the Rip Curl GromSearches, NSSAs. I know what the hell I’m doing! This happened so fast. I felt his hands on me! He was tackling me out of aggression. Surfing shouldn’t be a scapegoat for violence.”

Afterwards, he said Alex announced to the lineup, “All you bitch-ass longboarders, if you go right I’ll kick your ass!”

“When it comes down to people threatening me, I’m not going to fight in the parking lot,” said Jordan. “It’s not how I roll. He could definitely kick my ass. I’m not going to fight the guy.”

Initially, Jordan said he didn’t go to the police and only did so when social media lit up over the video and he “didn’t feel safe.”

“There were 190 comments (on Instagram and Facebook) and the majority were threatening towards me, saying things like, ‘Let’s find this kid and break his face’ and ‘Let’s swell his eye shut’ and ‘I hope his tires get slashed’. All these unstable, random people. I was worried about all the people he’s told to hurt me.”

Jordan says he was forced to make the assault charge (simple assault and not battery, he said) so he could get a restraining order.

“There were 190 comments (on Instagram and Facebook) and the majority were threatening towards me, saying things like, ‘Let’s find this kid and break his face’ and ‘Let’s swell his eye shut’ and ‘I hope his tires get slashed’. All these unstable, random people. I was worried about all the people he’s told to hurt me.”

“I was just protecting myself. To get the restraining order, you have to get someone into the process. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s what society tells you to do. I didn’t feel safe and I went to law enforcement.”

Jordan told me he planned to tell the court he doesn’t want Alex jailed and that he just wanted to keep a little legally mandated space between the two of ’em.

“I’m not trying to get him in trouble. I probably went a little over bounds. I did what I had to do to protect myself.”

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Rumor: Surf Ranch available to rent!

A hot new rumor is circling the surf industry mill and it directly involves you. I have had three recent chats with people in the know and semi-know who have let it leak, strategically I assume, that Surf Ranch, Kelly Slater’s dreamy central California artificial wave, is going to be available to rent in the very near future.

Whoa!

And you’ve rented bouncy houses, Chuck E. Cheese party rooms, karaoke studios and the local Shriner’s Hall for your various birthdays and graduations but just imagine how popular you’ll be when you rent Surf Ranch?

Now, details are slim as to when Surf Ranch will actually become available but my sources tell me that it is most certainly in the cards though a price has not been settled upon yet. We can help here. How much would you pay, honestly, for you and a crew of your best pals for one whole day? $30,000? $90,000?

It really is a conundrum. Of course there are the hard costs of operating which, between salaries, energy, food/drink would run thousands of dollars a day but above and beyond what is a good price point? Of course capitalism declares that it is worth whatever anyone is willing to pay but that can’t go on the brochure, can it. There has to be a starting point. But what?

While you’re both thinking and examining your bank accounts let me give you some advice. If your idea is to get your fifty best friends together and have them cough up $1000 each then throw it in the trash unless forty-two of your best friends don’t surf and are paying for the ambiance. The absolute maximum amount of surfers that can have fun-ish over the course of a day is ten and that’s assuming one of them gets hurt.

Also, you should consider the relative skill of your friends, depending how proud you are and you should tell all of your friends not to safety surf because the best part about Surf Ranch is picking off other’s scraps.

But there you have it. A brave new potential wedding venue.

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Where do you stand on the idea of bringing the cops into every so-called assault? A triumph of civilisation over anarchy or further evidence of the pussification of men?

Watch: World’s Lamest Surf Assault!

A few days ago, a small crowd was surfing a two-foot windswell at First Jetty, Virginia Beach. It ain’t Pipe but what is.

As recorded by the Surfline cam, and posted on Instagram after the fact, we see a shortboarder, clearly someone who can surf, take off deep on the peak and go left. A longboarder wobbles down the face of the wave from the opposite side of the peak. As they collide, the shortboarder jumps over the other board and the longboarder stays on his craft before flopping off the back of the wave.

A non-event.

Shortly afterwards, the shortboarder, Alex Burdett, who is a twenty-eight-year-old tattoo artist at Ghost Ship Tattoo in town there, was cuffed in the middle of a job and jailed on a charge of assault and battery.

“I asked if I could finish the tattoo and he told me to find a way for them to come back another day,” says Alex, who now has to spend a thousand bucks on a lawyer and stay in Virginia Beach for the next month, missing any swells that hit nearby, but interstate, Cape Hatteras and a vacay in Nicaragua. “I have a completely clean record. It was the only time I’ve been in cuffs outside of the bedroom.”

“I pushed him into his first wave. His parents don’t surf,” says Alex. “I saw him do his first floater.”

So talk us through the collision.

“The funny thing is, I fell off my board. I was avoiding a collision. If you look at the video, I’m on a five-two twin and he’s on a ten-foot longboard. He puts two hands on my shoulders and I jump over his board. I didn’t physically touch him. I’m goofy and he’s regular. I can’t jump backwards.

“When the cop turned up in the parking lot at work, I said to my boys, ‘Which one of you fuckers did something?’ No one thought it was me. I didn’t think it had…anything… to do with the incident in the water. As surfers, incidents in the water stay in the water. I thought I taught that to all the people I taught how to surf. If you want to say something, say something. It’s surfing. We should be brothers about it. And I didn’t even say anything in the water. I was a bit pissed that I had a ding in my board, I might’ve said, ‘Fuck’, at worst, but it was a little ding. It wasn’t like he’s fucked my girlfriend or anything.”

As it is, Alex has to hire a lawyer because even if the kid doesn’t turn up in court or tries to drop the charges, it’s The State of Virginia vs Alex Burdett.

How’s he feel about it?

“It was weird sitting in jail thinking about a kid I’d pushed into his first wave sending me to jail over… surfing. It’s insane.”

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Just in: Energy drinks save surfing!

I preach often, like a sweaty fire and brimstone theologian, on the surf industry apocalypse and what precipitated it. “Conservatism!” I shout, a tendril of wet blonde dancing in front of my nose. “Conservatism and fear!” I continue jabbing one crooked finger toward the sky. The brands, our brands, in their hunger to gobble up larger and larger profits watered themselves down, went public, brought in Disney executives and then distressed asset managers to run them all while tanking.

“A ten year fall from GRACE!” I wail as the newly laid off shout “Amen!”

Everyone knows that our major brands, our Volcoms and Quiksilvers and Billabongs, are in deep trouble. These beacons of the surf/skate/snow lifestyle used to throw lavish parties to celebrate films, line releases, competitive victories. They used to sponsor professional surfers for millions of dollars even the worst professional surfers for hundreds of thousands of dollars but no more.

The apocalypse has rendered future Bede Durbidges moot.

I do say, without Red Bull, Monster and even Rockstar it would be nigh impossible for any professional surfer, save John John Florence and Gabriel Medina, to make a living from surfing professionally.

Now, do you think that Nat Young could survive in professional surfing without Rockstar’s stipend? There is no way. Absolutely no way. Without energy drinks professional surfers would be but a memory and professional surfing but a thing Luke Munro once did.

I do think we should show these benevolent giants a little love today. Go now and drink a Red Bull + vodka and smile, knowing that you are keeping dreams alive.

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Science: Wavepool and nature the same!

Earth's great secrets are but one Kelly Slater and one Adam Fincham away from being cracked.

Can you recall that daybefore you were aware of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch? When, in your mind’s eye a “wave pool” meant surge-y pushy whitewash-y nonsense? Mostly meant for children and the Chinese?

I can’t.

Like genetically modified food, wavepools now feel eternal and we can debate debate debate their moral value but it is a pointless exercise because they are the future and since they are the future they are also the past.

Eternal.

But oh the debates are interesting enough. The quality of wavepool versus natural waves. The essence etc. I’ll tell you what, I’ve surfed Surf Ranch and had all my thoughts and listened to the thoughts of others and interesting but nothing has definitively swayed me on the “which is better” discussion until yesterday evening when I was shown definitive proof that there is really no difference between the two.

That’s right. In our human arrogance we think our ”feelings” or “experience” matter. Of course they do not. The only thing that matters is empirical proofs and yesterday I was shown empirical proof that wavepools and nature are exactly the same.

And there you have it. Science took us to the moon. Science is allowing us to mock the earth.

Hahaha stupid earth. Your great secrets are but one Kelly Slater and one Adam Fincham away from being cracked.